


If Things Hadn't Gone Wrong

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 08:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9376553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Change one little thing and everything can go so differently.Instead of keeping his identity a secret, Clark had been forthcoming with his best friend and Lex had been accepting of aliens. Instead of Clark stumbling through what to do with Kara, Lex had been there to help. Now, life for everyone is different.Kara doesn't grow up in fear of her powers. Lena grows up loved with the name Luthor as a gift instead of a burden.





	

The last thing Kara clearly remembers from Krypton is her mother and father telling her to take care of Kal-El before she’s sent off, clutching to the learning crystal. Something shakes her pod and then she’s sleeping. She dreams of her planet dying over and over again. The dark whispers to her and sometimes she thinks she dreams of her Aunt Astra, but it’s all just a dream.

Then she’s falling.

The unbearable heat in her pod wakes her up and she doesn’t know what’s going on, but there’s a sun giving off a light so unlike Rao’s and the pod crashes, but she doesn’t really feel it. The pod’s hatch opens and two men are in front of her. One looks so much like her uncle, but he introduces himself as _Clark_.

He speaks Kryptonese but with such a harsh tongue, she almost doesn’t understand. Then she says she speaks English and the man next to Clark – _Lex_ – is laughing and Kara smiles a little. They tell her, surrounded in a golden sea of wheat and hay, that Krypton is dead. She tells that that she knows. She doesn’t tell them that she’s dreamed about it for over two earth decades.

They tell her that something followed her here, something akin to a prison, and she tells them that it might be Fort Rozz, a prison full of Kryptonians, and Lex is muttering under his breath. Kara couldn’t hear him, but Clark could and he could tell that Lex was unhappy. Evidently, whatever powers she would gain from the sun’s yellow light had not yet manifested.

Kara stays with Lex in his penthouse in Metropolis, despite Kara’s arguing. She was sent here to protect Kal-El – _no, Clark_ – but Clark had just held her and said that he was grown now and didn’t need her protection. But he wasn’t grown enough yet to take care of her on his own. She had made it clear that she wanted to be with _him_ , not some stranger, but Lex and Clark had sat her down to talk about it.

Clark was too young and didn’t have the resources to take care of her. He had too many enemies and didn’t want to put her in danger. That there was an anti-alien organization that was after Clark and he couldn’t risk them coming after her, too. She had asked if staying with Lex was a permanent solution. The men shared uneasy looks before telling her that staying with him was too dangerous as well.

“What will happen of me?” she asked. Dejection was clear on her face.

“There’s a family, the Danvers,” Clark started. “They helped me understand my powers and they can help you, too.”

“Lex helped you understand your powers, too,” she pointed out.

“Lex has a corporation to run. There will be too many questions about why he suddenly has a teenaged charge.” Clark’s voice was soft. Kara is his only blood relative and, despite how excited he was to finally have family that can tell him about his past, he knew it wasn’t safe for her to be in the limelight. “The Danvers are good people. They’re a good family.”

“What if they don’t want me?” She looked down at her lap and fidgeted with her fingers.

“They will,” he assured.

“But _you_ don’t want me.”

Clark pulled her into a tight hug, as tight as he was willing to go. “I want you, Kara. I do, but it’s not safe.”

Lex left the room to give them some space, but he could hear Kara crying through the wall.

Clark wants to drop Kara off at the Danvers household immediately, but Lex talks him down.

“You can’t just give them a child without notice,” Lex chides. For all of Clark’s goodness, he wasn’t the best at thinking about consequences. “And Kara needs to learn how to blend in on earth, first.”

Kara stays with Lex for a month while Clark talks to the Danvers about fostering a Kryptonian. Lex spends a day finding the boundaries of Kara’s education and is more than astounded when her primary education from Krypton far exceeds college level science and mathematics. However, she’s severely lacking in history and language.

His spare room formally becomes Kara’s room for the month that she stays there. He buys her books to expand her knowledge and her bookcases are exceedingly full. Books decorate her desk, half of her queen-sized bed, and the floor. He also gives her a set of books to establish the boundaries of knowledge humans have at her equivalent age.

Living with Lex isn’t all formalities and education, though. Kara learns about Lex’s family and about Lex’s sister, Lena. She learns that, much like how she will be in the future, Lena was adopted when she was four. There had been a house fire and Superman – _Clark_ – had been too late to save Lena’s biological parents, but had held the roof long enough for Lex to run in and grab the small child before the entire building went up. Lex had convinced his parents to adopt her.

Lex said that they could be good friends, but Lena, now fifteen, had graduated college early and was visiting different campuses for the month to decide where she would go. Lillian, Lex’s mother, had gone along with her to brag about her adopted daughter’s prowess to the scientific giants she used to war with in the science arena. Their lack of presence was the only reason Kara had been allowed to stay for so long.

(That’s not to say she didn’t learn anything about them. Lex was proud of his baby sister, having practically raised her on his own after Lionel had died, and talked endlessly about Lena’s achievements. Lillian hadn’t quite taken to Lena like the Luthor men had.)

Kara’s education with Lex was unlike anything she had ever experienced. They spent hours watching shows together and reading popular stories that she would have to be at least a little knowledgeable about to pass off as a human. Harry Potter scares her and she fears her treatment by the Danvers until Clark talks her down.

The few clothes she had from her pod are quickly replaced by human clothing. T-shirts and jeans replace her first dress layer and hoodies, cardigans, and jackets replace her robes. When she asked about underclothes, Lex and Clark get flustered and Lex has a female worker from his company take her shopping while he hung out in the background, trying not to look at anything.

She convinces Lex to buy her a blue zip-up hoodie with the House of El logo embossed on the left chest side, much to Clark’s embarrassment. She’s not upset by the commercialization of her House Crest. She’s proud that it continues to live on, galaxies away from her home. The hoodie become her favorite article of clothing. Lex buys ten more, with multiples in increasing sizes, so she can keep wearing them. The first one is still her favorite.

Two weeks after her arrival, Lex and Clark take her to the zoo. She’s fascinated by the animals that don’t exist on her home planet and, when they return home, Lex introduces her to Animal Planet and she’s glued to the screen for three days straight before they manage to pry her away.

A week before the end of the month is the first time she meets the Danvers. Eliza and Jeremiah are busy talking to Clark, so Alex and Kara are sent to Kara’s room.

It’s an interesting pairing.

Kara wears a bright pink cardigan on top of a powder pink button up with light jeans. Alex is wearing a dark green plaid underneath an even darker leather jacket with black jeans. They don’t talk to each other at first. Alex just frowns while looking through Kara’s books and Kara grabs a pillow and plays with it on her lap.

“It’s okay if you don’t want me,” Kara says, breaking the silence. “We can find another place for me.”

Alex doesn’t say anything still. She just looks at Kara before returning to the books. She pulls out a book Lex had gotten for Kara when she had mentioned that her and Clark’s powers came from the sun. It was a book on nuclear fusion and radiation.

“Isn’t this a bit advanced for you?” Alex asks. “You’re, like, twelve.”

“I think I am thirteen by earth standards,” Kara answers. “And no, Krypton was more scientifically advanced than earth.”

“Really?”

Then Kara pulls out her learning crystal, still filled with all the information her mother and father had wanted her to learn before she married on Krypton – a wish long gone now – and showed Alex all the things she had learned, starting from when she was little. Alex was enraptured by everything, but struggled to read the unfamiliar language. What little she could interpret was still fascinating.

Before they knew it, Jeremiah and Eliza were knocking on Kara’s door to tell Alex that they were going to go soon. Their faces gave away their relief about Alex and Kara getting along.

“I’ll be right out,” Alex shouts through the still closed door. She gives Kara a calculating look and then she’s shrugging off her jacket. “If you’re going to be a Danvers, you better look the part. Put this on.”

And then she’s helping Kara take off the cardigan on put on the much too big leather jacket. It clashes heavily with Kara’s bright clothing, but they grin at each other.

Kara runs off to the other side of the room to her closet and pulls out her favorite jacket – the blue hoodie with the House of El symbol.

“You should look like an El,” she says. Alex slips on the jacket. It sits just right on her shoulders, much better than it had on Kara’s slight frame. Kara hesitates for a moment before handing Alex the learning crystal, too. “You can learn Kryptonese with this. Then we can talk about theories together.”

“And talk behind our parents’ backs,” Alex adds. There’s a glint in her eyes that makes Kara excited. _Our parents_. Alex pulls Kara into an awkward one-armed hug that has the leather jacket’s collar shoved into Kara’s face before leaving. She’s careful to hold onto the learning crystal even though it’s already secure in her jacket pocket.

They leave and Kara hears Eliza ask Alex if that was the jacket she had always been wearing.

A week later, Kara is on the plane to the Danvers with Lex and Clark just the day before the other Luthors were due to come back. Lex had falsified documents and files so that Kara was an orphan of unknown origins being fostered by the Danvers. Medical files showed that she had amnesia and could not remember her last name or origins.

“Are you sure you remember how to text?” Lex asks for the seventy-third time. Kara counted. Lex had made a secure network between three phones that were divided between him, Kara, and Clark so that she would always have someone to talk to about Krypton and in general.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Kara replies yet again. “And I know how to call and email and instant message. As I have assured you over seventy times.”

Lex grimaces.

“I just want to make sure you always have us when you need us,” Lex says in way of apology. “Clark and I care about you.” Lex looks at Clark, who had fallen asleep on the seat next to him after complaining about airplanes being too slow.

Kara smiles at them.

“I know.”

They talk about the cases of books he had bought her and the shows she has yet to watch to pass the time of the flight away until Kara’s asleep, too. She dreams about LEDs and invisibility cloaks. When she wakes up, they’re about to land and she realizes something. She’s still not ready to let go of Kal-El, yet. But Kal-El is gone and Clark is here, but it’s not the same. She cries as the plane descends and finally, after a month and a lifetime, she mourns. She mourns her family and life that should have been, but it’s all beyond her or anyone’s grasp.

Clark pulls her onto his lap after they’re finally cleared to take off their seatbelts and she cries into his shoulder. Briefly, she wonders if she could escape the Black Mercy her aunt had always told her about. She wonders if she would want to escape a paradise.

Clark whispers soothing words into her ear until she quiets and promises that he and Lex will visit whenever possible. That he is just a call or text away for any reason, no matter how trivial. Even if it’s just to ask how the shower faucets work.

She laughs at that and feels better, knowing that her baby – _big?_ – cousin is there for her. That she’s not alone.

“We’re stronger together,” he says quietly. “No matter how far apart we are, we’re still together.”

She nods against his chest and disentangles herself. She’s ready. She can do this.

(Clark told her she needed to hide who she was and Lex had slapped him – however ineffectual it might have been – and told her that she needed to be careful, but to be herself. She decided that _herself_ did not like the soft pastels that Clark favored.)

//

A year later and Kara had made yet another spare room hers. Her closet was filled with button ups and leather jackets, just like Alex’s, and both of them were taking college classes along with their high school courses. Alex had kept the learning crystal and was getting better at using Kryptonese.

Moving in had had a good start.

(There was a stutter when Kara kept bringing home injured animals, but Alex had taken pity on her. They went to the library to research injured animal care and Kara had all but started a wild animal hospital.)

Everything seemed to be fine and dandy, then Alex started pulling away. They went weeks without talking to each other despite sharing a wall. It was only after Kara had to help Alex drunkenly climb through a window that Kara found out why. Which led to her stomping down to Eliza and Jeremiah’s lab to find her foster mother after asking Clark for advice.

(Clark’s advice usually led to confrontation.)

“Why do you talk to her like that?” Kara demanded.

“Talk to who like what?” Eliza replied, thoroughly confused. She sat up at her workbench and turned to Kara.

“Why do you talk to Alex like she’s always a disappointment?”

“Who told you that I do that?” Eliza leaned back in shock.

“Alex!”

Then Kara had started ranting about how Eliza had been hurting Alex’s feelings, making her feel like she wasn’t good enough, and Eliza sat and took it all in.

“That’s how she feels?” Eliza asked quietly after the ranting had ceased.

“It’s why she’s upstairs, crying!” Kara stomped her foot and the concrete of the basement lab cracked under her. “It’s why she’s been avoiding everyone for so long!”

Eliza had immediately left the lab and gone up to talk to Alex. Kara did her best not to listen in.

The next day, Alex seemed happier and Kara vowed to make sure Alex always felt comfortable enough to tell her anything.

(After all, Kara had Lex and Clark as part of her family, but Alex really only had her and it just wasn’t fair.)

For the anniversary of the day of her landing, which Lex had decided would be her birthday, Clark had bought Kara a junkyard with a warehouse near Midvale. It was Lex’s idea. Kara’s powers were starting to come in and Lex thought it prudent that Kara had somewhere where she could safely practice them.

The warehouse had been stocked with dozens of junk vehicles and other big metal things that she could punk and throw while the warehouse itself was big enough for her to practice flying. After some puppy-eyed pouting and begging directed at Lex, Kara’s warehouse had been situated with a lab with enough material for Alex and Kara to play with for a long time.

Alex built her first motorcycle in that warehouse. And Kara’s. And a few more after that. Kara didn’t really want to ask how or why, but Alex had also attached a rocket launcher to one. There was a broken car with chainsaws attached to the front that sat off in a corner of the warehouse that Kara staunchly refused to acknowledge.

(Eliza didn’t know that Alex and Kara could ride motorcycles. Especially since Kara was underage. Alex had convinced Jeremiah to sign them up for classes to drive all sorts of vehicles after she and Kara earned enough money through fixing things around town.)

(Kara loved motorcycles more than anything.

Her favorite thing was racing Alex around the junkyard with them, but Alex actually used a functioning motorcycle and Kara used one that only had wheels, propelling herself with her powers. It was the only time she could use her flying and speed without getting caught.)

And now, a year after Kara had moved in with the Danvers, Kara was pretty sure Alex had a girlfriend. Or had, really.

She had never really _said_ so, but she always brought this girl named Vicky over and they’d hold hands and cuddle on the couch while they watched movies before retiring to Alex’s room early in the night.

The fifth time that had happened, Kara was sitting between Eliza and Jeremiah at the dinner table, trying to finish her homework before she went to sleep.

“Has Alex said anything to you about Vicky?” Jeremiah asked, interrupting Kara from her thoughts about physics. “Or is this just her way of coming out?”

Kara looked at him and looked up in the direction of Alex’s room. She dropped her glasses to see Alex and Vicky cuddling on the bed, watching something on Alex’s laptop.

“I guess she feels comfortable enough for this?” Kara offered, shrugging.

No one ever directly said or asked Alex anything about it. Eliza just said that she could invite Vicky over for dinner whenever she wanted and Alex had beamed at them.

Now, Alex had stopped bringing Vicky around, staying over at her house, or talking about Vicky at all. No one pried.

Kara let Alex drag them into an academic competition, not wanting to push Alex about something she wasn’t ready to talk about. They raced against each other to see who could finish online courses faster and, at some point, Kara had accidentally acquired all necessary credits to graduate high school.

Lex and Clark were working together to take down the remnants of Cadmus. Lex, unlike Clark, was much more concerned about secret identities and had developed what he called “refractors” after he watched a crime show about robberies that would prevent anyone from taking photos of Superman. In place of Clark’s face and body would be a hazy whiteness other than the House of El crest. Clark had been careful about going fast enough where good pictures didn’t exist but Lex was paranoid.

//

Several years later, Kara was in the middle of her bioengineering degree, following Alex’s footsteps. Unlike Alex, who had done a BS/MS program that had extended into a PhD and then went to medical school, Kara hadn’t really known what she wanted to do. She just knew she was really interested into the anatomical differences between different species. Alex didn’t mind Kara following her and was happy to have her sister as her apartment mate. Mainly because Kara’s living stipend from promising to intern at Luthor Corp easily paid for a good apartment in San Francisco.

(Rent and other living expenses were made easier by the sisters volunteering to be handyworkers during the weekend. The super – a little old lady – appreciated it and reduced their rent. Kara’s cheery disposition despite her darker clothing endeared her to everyone in the building and people would constantly give her any extra food they had.)

When Kara had started applying to colleges at fifteen, Lex had put her in contact with Lena in case she needed help adjusting.

(He never said it, but Kara was sure it had been for Lena just as much as it had been for Kara. Lillian had been arrested for anti-alien crimes and Lena had helped put her away.

They had gotten intel from someone named J’onn that Clark knew and Lena refused to believe it at first because Lionel and Lex were so _good_ and she couldn’t believe that Lillian _wasn’t_.)

He had given Lena a phone for the secure network and had promised to mail another two to Kara soon to replace the ones she would probably break in the future. (“I gave Alex one years ago and she still has the same one but _you_ go through one every two months!” He shouted, throwing his hands in the air.) They had bonded easily but, somehow after having been friends for two years and aware of each other for even longer, they had never met. Kara had confided in Lena about being a Kryptonian (after getting Clark and Lex’s permission) and the two knew more about each other than anyone else did (except Alex and Lex for their respective siblings).

(Some things about Kara, only Lena knew. Like the details of all the planets she’s been to and all the different foods she fallen in love with. Alex had asked before when Kara first moved in, but Kara had been too hurt to talk about it and Alex had never brought it up again. With Lena, enough time had gone by where it didn’t hurt anymore.

Lena loved listening to Kara talk about how traveling lightyears away had been child’s play on Krypton and Lena had badgered her about every single thing she could remember about the technology. It was like when Alex had learned that the yellow sun wasn’t the only reason Kryptonians healed quickly, but also because of nanobots that all Kryptonians were injected with at birth to bolster their immune systems for foreign territories.)

But something always came up when they tried to meet up. Kara had done an internship at Luthor Corp in Metropolis in hopes of spending time with Lena, but Lillian had sent Lena away to Ireland for study abroad. Lena had flown in to San Francisco with her brother for a business meeting, but it happened right when Alex and Kara had to go back to Midvale because Jeremiah had been in a car crash (he had only broken his arm _but still_ ).

Still, they spent as much time together as they could. Like right now, when Kara was doing homework and Lena was doing some paperwork for Luthor Corp. They had a video chat running but weren’t really talking, aside from Lena cursing corporate assholes under her breath and Kara threatening the Greek and Roman alphabets punctuated by the squeaking sound of her swivel chair as she turned her hips back and forth.

The silence was broken by Alex storming and shouting, “Kara, I think I’m gay!”

“You think?”

Whatever reaction Alex had been expecting, it wasn’t this. Kara hadn’t even looked up from her homework. Lena, who Alex could easily see on Kara’s laptop screen, hadn’t looked up either.

Almost growling, Alex grabbed Kara by her shoulders and spun her around.

“I’m _gay_ ,” Alex said again, more forcefully.

“I know,” Kara said as she blinked owlishly at her sister. “I mean, we all kind of figured when you were dating Vicky.”

“I wasn’t dating Vicky!”

Kara blinked at her again.

“I think I should hang up now,” said Lena, her voice static-y over the laptop. “Love you, Kar.”

Kara waved her hand over her shoulder and heard the beeping of the video chat hanging up.

Kara blinked at Alex. Alex blinked at Kara. They were silent.

“ _Was I dating Vicky?_ ”

Kara held in a sigh and tried to figure out the best way to navigate this situation. They had all assumed Alex was gay _years_ ago. And Alex was barely figuring out now. Kara did her best not to laugh. Alex needed support right now, support that they thought they had given her years ago, and this called for a Sisters’ Night.

“I’m going to order us some pizzas and some of those nighttime delivery cookies you love so much, okay?” Kara said. “And then you can tell me all about what brought this on.”

Alex nodded dumbly, still trying to process whether or not she had dated Vicky.

She was still just sitting there, frozen, by the time pizza and cookies had arrived and Kara sat next to her, patiently waiting for Alex to figure out what she had to say. And when Alex started talking, Kara was more than happy to listen.

She was happy to hear about how everything had started with a job interview with the corporation run by Bruce Wayne (which Lex had very verbally voiced his utter betrayal about). How this girl, Maggie, had been assigned as part of his security detail that day. How Alex had saw her, been stunned, and then spilled coffee on her. Coffee that was thankfully lukewarm. She talked for hours about the flirting about figuring things out. She talked about Maggie. She talked about this pretty girl and her eyes were so bright and Kara was so happy for her.

“I was so scared you were going to be disappointed in me,” Alex confessed. “I can’t do this without you.”

“You never have to do anything without me, Alex,” Kara assured. “Except shower. Unless you really need help, then _I guess_.”

Alex laughed and swatted at Kara’s arm. Then she looked at their forgotten food.

“Damn it, the food's cold and the ice cream’s melted,” Alex said, groaning. But there was that glint in her eye, the one Kara adored from the first day they had met, and Kara just rolled her eyes. She quickly zapped the pizza and cookies with heat vision and froze the ice cream with her freeze breath.

The pulled up a show on Netflix and ate happily while Alex criticized all the inaccuracies whenever they showed up.

Maggie and Alex did end up together. Eventually.

Alex went through what felt like hell and back for Maggie before they eventually ended up a couple. Alex had pined for months and it took Maggie getting shot while on the job before she showed up at their apartment with pizza to ask Alex out. Kara had walked in on them making out on the couch before making a beeline to her room and calling Lena.

She could hear Alex’s heart racing through the wall.

The next morning, Maggie had been sent in to wake Kara up while Alex cooked breakfast. Maggie teased her about video calling Lena through the night before shutting up after Kara asked how spending the night had been.

Alex was red the entire meal.

“You know, I never really believed the whole “siblings of a gay person are more likely to be gay” thing until now, Danvers,” Maggie said through a mouthful of pancakes when Kara went back to her room.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked. “Kara isn’t gay?”

“So you’re telling me that the girl on her laptop – Lena, I think it was – isn’t her girlfriend?”

“I think if my sister were gay, I would know.”

“Everyone knew you were gay except for _you_ ,” Maggie retorted, pointing with her fork for emphasis.

Their conversation was cutoff with Kara going to the bathroom, singing, “I’m bisexual!”

Maggie gave Alex a pointed look. A few seconds later, Kara came back out.

“But Lena’s not my girlfriend.”

The door closed behind Kara and Maggie gave the door a pointed look.

//

Okay, so maybe Maggie was right. Sort of. Not that Lena was Kara’s girlfriend, but Kara definitely _wanted_ her to be.

But they hadn’t ever met, not that it really mattered to Kara. Lena was Lex’s little sister and her best friend. And maybe Kara had a little crush on Lena. Okay, a big crush. A lot of feelings. Whatever.

Neither really had a social life outside of each other and family. Work and school took up too much of their time and they spent most of every waking hour with each other. Kara knew Lena was gay, but Lena never talked about having a girlfriend or even _liking_ anyone. Not that Kara hadn’t done the same. The most recent person she had a crush on was James, Clark’s photographer friend, but that was long before she had met Lena.

Two days after Maggie and Alex had become a thing, Kara had become increasingly awkward when she video chatted Lena. Now, instead of just being in her pajamas and messy hair as normal, she tried to look _good_. Not _too_ good where Lena was suspicious, but _still good_.

Baggy school t-shirts were replaced with better fitting ones, sometimes even button ups, with the excuse that she had just come back from school and didn’t want to bother changing. Lena had raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t say anything. Lena remained in her work attire and occasional pajamas but continued to not wear her casual clothing.

 _What did Lena look like in casual clothing_?

Instead of doing whatever it was she was supposed to be doing – maybe math homework? – Kara daydreamed about Lena in casual clothing. Instead of business suits and dresses, she imagined Lena wearing jeans and plaid.

(Honestly, how have they not seen each other in casual clothing? These last two days had been the first time Kara could ever remember not being in pajamas when video chatting Lena and Lena was always either in her work clothes or sleep clothes.)

She didn’t notice when Lena had called her name until Lena had gotten louder.

“Kara!”

“Yes?” Kara’s eyes snapped away from the wall and towards her laptop screen. “What’s wrong?”

“I could ask you the same.” Lena was doing the eyebrow raising thing again.

“Nothing’s wrong!” Kara promised, much too forcefully and quickly.

“Mhm.” Lena did not sound at all convinced. “As I was saying, are you free this weekend?”

“For you? Always,” Kara answered without a thought. She cringed internally at how it sounded.

“Good, because I’m coming to San Francisco.”

Kara froze.

“You’re coming to San Francisco?” she asked weakly.

“You could at least _try_ to sound excited.” The words were sharp and Lena looked down towards her paper. Her pen moved like she was working, but Kara could tell her friend was hurt.

“No, I am excited!” Kara assured. She clapped her hands excitedly. “We’re going to get to see each other!”

And then Kara rambled about what they could do together and got lost in the planning, not even realizing that Lena had never even mentioned _why_ she was coming to San Francisco. She missed the adoring way Lena looked at her while she gestured wildly about the beach and museums and _oh my god, Lena you have to see the science center_. _And there’s this botanical garden! Rao, you should take a picture there, it’s so pretty and you’re so pretty, it’s pretty squared!_

That weekend, they did none of the planned things. Well, some. They did some of the planned things.

Kara had been at the gate, too excited to just wait at the baggage claim at the gate. She wore her favorite Henley (it was Alex’s grey one) and leather jacket (the one Alex had given to her years ago that she kept sending to Lex to get fixed so it still looked and felt like it did at the beginning, but fit better) with jeans that Maggie had said made her ass look great (Maggie had also asked why she wanted that input. Kara just walked away).

Lena’s late night flight had been delayed even later, but Kara hadn’t read Lena’s text about it until she had already parked at the airport. It just gave her more time to fidget and be nervous because _she’s seeing Lena for the first time!_

And then Lena was coming out of the gate, wearing something Kara had not at all been expecting. Theoretically, she knew Lena would be in casual clothes and she had imagine what the casual clothes would be, but Lena, strong Lena who took no shit from anyone, was wearing a sun dress. A soft green sun dress and if Kara hadn’t been a goner before, she was now.

She’d seen Lena in sun dresses before, but it was always the elegant types for galas or the dark, intimidating types for business. And they were always obscured by poor video quality. But now _Lena_ was right in front of her, wearing a dress that was as soft and as pretty as Lena herself and _Rao_ Kara really needed to say something because Lena was just giving her that grin she has when Kara’s been rambling too much but now Kara wasn’t saying anything but Lena was still _grinning_.

“ _You’re really pretty, Le_ ,” Kara finally blurted out. It was something safe to say, she said it to Lena nearly every day.

Lena grin widened. “You don’t look half-bad yourself, Kar.”

And then the nerves are gone, because it’s Lena. It’s Lena, her best friend. It’s Lena, who had always been easy to talk to. It’s _Lena_.

They made their way to baggage claim and the back of their hands brushed together. They were halfway to baggage claim when Lena pulled them into an empty stairwell.

“What?” Kara said, surprised.

“You know I’m not one to live in fear of what I want, Kara,” Lena said. Everything about her screamed seriousness, but Kara could hear her heart racing. “And I know you’re all about consent, so I’m asking you this: Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Kara breathed out. _Am I trapped in a Black Mercy?_ Then Lena’s lips were on hers and Kara really didn’t care if it was a Black Mercy.

Before they could lose themselves in everything, Lena reminded her about the potential of paparazzi. They made quick work of getting Lena’s things and slow down for a beat for Lena to appreciate Kara’s car.

(Motorcycles don’t carry luggage well and Kara’s car was her baby. She had built it nearly from scratch at her warehouse and spent a year getting it ready for her driver’s test.)

They spent the entire weekend in Lena’s hotel and, when Kara finally showed back up at her apartment, Alex was sitting at the coffee table with a knowing look.

“How long have you been sitting there?” Kara wouldn’t put it passed her sister to have been sitting at the coffee table, perfecting the look, from the moment Kara had texted her that she was coming back.

“How long were you banging Lena?”

Kara scurried off to her room.

(Lex and Clark called her nonstop after Lena had landed. They were both ecstatic about their families actually becoming family _legally_ in the future. Neither Lena nor Kara told them that they were thinking too far ahead.)

//

Alex had decided that medicine wasn’t her route and had dropped out midway through her last year. She had realized tech development and working with her hands was what she was really passionate about (something they should have realized back at the warehouse) and had decided that she wanted to start her own company.

Kara had decided that she wanted to help people and her interests in anatomy and physiology had led to medicine, specifically surgery. Until, she, much like Alex, had realized it wasn’t for her. Helping people one person at a time wasn’t enough for her. Superman helped hundreds of people every day and Kara wanted to help on a similar scale. After talking to Alex and Lena about it, she decided to join Alex at her company and work on developing machinery to improve the medical field.

They had moved to National City soon after that decision.

Maggie and Alex had broken up, neither wanting to do long distance. Maggie had moved to Gotham for a few months before moving to National City soon after. Kara didn’t really know the story, but apparently, a girl that Maggie had dated for a few weeks made her realize she was in love with Alex.

Kara and Lena were still going strong and were happily four years into their relationship. They still couldn’t see each other often, with how busy their schedules were, but they were happy. Then, nine months after Alex and Kara had moved to National City, Lena showed up at Kara’s apartment (Alex and Kara finally decided to get separate apartments after walking in on each other a few too many times) with news.

“I’m moving to National City,” she stated simply. She had a small smile but her eyes were shining.

Kara, who had already attached herself to Lena right after she opened the door, practically screamed. Lena couldn’t hear her, but she could feel Kara’s mouth moving quickly as she chattered about her excitement.

“But what about Luthor Corp?” Kara finally asked after her initial excitement calmed down. “You can’t just leave your work, Lena, it means so much to you.”

“Which is why Luthor Corp is now opening a branch in National City.”

Kara had wanted to celebrate immediately, but Lena had meetings the entire day to finalize everything and was flying back the next day. Still, they spent the entire night together.

After that, everything moved fast.

Maggie and Lena had become best friends now that they spent more time together. Maggie’s prying questions and different background had been a boon to Lena’s thought process for tech development.

Alex had brought on a Winn Schott, Jr. onto their team after she found him at CatCo. They wouldn’t have even found the computer genius if it hadn’t been for CatCo running a feature on up and coming companies with AK (Alex and Kara were not creative about names) being a main topic.

The company’s expansion picked up right after that. They had managed to bring their team up to twenty people and had developed a few projects that were ready to be tested. Funding was provided by Kara digging up and selling treasures (an idea she got from Clark and only executed after Lex supplied her with camouflage technology and the refractors Clark used). Lena had offered to help but the sisters refused.

And then AK suddenly got even bigger, to the point where Lord Technologies had attempted to buy them.

“I want to throw him into space,” Alex said after their meeting with the oily CEO.

“I’m capable of it. Just give me the word and I’ll make it happen,” Kara had all but growled. It took a lot to rile her up but _Rao_ Maxwell Lord was an ass.

Instead, AK had begun a partnership with Luthor Corp.

(There had been some talk about why in the media after an article of Kara and Lena on a date had gone viral. And then AK had started churning out better tools for less invasive surgeries and more cost-efficient scanners and people calmed down.)

Everything was going great.

Alex was president and Kara was vice president of AK. They had just made “Stronger Together” their official slogan. Luthor Corp stocks had increased since expanding into National City (something AK didn’t have to worry about yet as they were still a private company).

Maggie had just proposed to Alex and everyone was on their way back home from the engagement party (Jeremiah and Eliza’s idea) when _it_ happened.

Kara Zor-El was called out. It was time for Supergirl to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me warm and fuzzy inside


End file.
